


lucky strike

by silver_and_exact



Category: Miami Vice (TV)
Genre: -slightly-, Could Be Canon, Crockett has a crush on Tubbs, First Kiss, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Pining, Shotgunning, Smoking, Stakeout, Tubbs has a crush on Crockett, all they canonically do is flirt anyways, these people are totally bisexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26151673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_and_exact/pseuds/silver_and_exact
Summary: Crockett finds out that Tubbs has never smoked a cigarette while they're on an uneventful stakeout.  Cue fluff.
Relationships: Sonny Crockett/Ricardo Tubbs
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	lucky strike

“What d’you mean, you’ve never smoked a cigarette?” Sonny Crockett said, incredulous, his own cigarette’s ash growing precariously long as he paused to contemplate the unthinkable statement his partner had just made.

The stakeout was going nowhere, and the detectives were one false alarm (creaky boards, raccoons disturbing nearby trash cans) away from calling Castillo and bitching him out for sending them to the docks at this ungodly hour on what was looking more and more like a bad tip. 

Or at least, they'd tell the lieutenant they suspected the tip was a bust. Neither of them were actually going to bitch out Castillo—even Sonny didn't have a  _ death wish _ , though it sure looked that way sometimes. But still, if the coke pushers they were tracking were half as smart as their continued evasion suggested, they wouldn’t use the same place twice in one week to conduct their business. 

“I mean I don’t  _ smoke _ , Crockett,” said Tubbs, bored, unbothered, elbow propped on the Ferrari’s window, wrist practically all that was holding his head up. It was dark, and the metronomic thud of the waves against the pier was making him sleepy. The moon glittering against the softly-rippling surface of the nearby water. He could still see it when he blinked.

“Yeah, yeah, plenty of people don’t smoke, buddy, but they’ve  _ smoked _ .”

Crockett gesticulated with his cigarette, pantomiming smoking more vigorously than he was actually smoking, and he must’ve been genuinely thrown by Rico’s admission, because he tipped a bit of ash onto his white jacket and cursed under his breath, gingerly shaking it off. 

Tubbs snorted with laughter, eliciting a sour glare from his partner. Sonny always looked like an alley cat in the rain when he was embarrassed. It was… cute. Not that he was going to say so. He imagined the response—Sonny, doubling down on the wet-cat look, voice extra-gravelly and probably stammering something that would inevitably begin with  _ listen, pal… _

Cute. 

Except, of course, for the very real possibility that he could be genuinely angry, especially if Rico said it in the tone he suspected it’d probably come out in if he chose to say it right now. Might sound a little too sincere. He’d stick with their tried-and-true, easy banter of smart-ass comments.

“Would you believe me if I told you I don’t drink, either? Or…” Rico widened his eyes, as if scandalized by his own words, “that I’m a vegetarian?”

“Real funny,” Crockett said, rolling his eyes and stubbing out his cigarette. “I swear, between you and Castillo, I’m gonna have to pick up some new bad habits to balance the Bureau out. Never seen this many supposedly self-respecting detectives living like altar boys. It's just plain  _ wrong _ .”

“An absolute crime,” Rico deadpanned. 

“Whatever, pal, it’s past your bedtime—sounds like your sense of humor already turned in for the night.”

“So did the dealers,” replied his partner gloomily. “I bet they’re in bed, counting mules or whatever coke lords do.”

Sonny made a tired, nonverbal sound of agreement, and did a halfhearted scan of the dock and the nearby warehouse, illuminated by a few sparse streetlights, with his binoculars. Nothing. 

The minutes limped by. Though the silence was companionable, it did little to offset the tedium of waiting. Finally, Sonny broke it with a question.

“Hey, listen, you wanna try one of my Luckies?”

Rico raised an eyebrow.

“You trying to corrupt me, Crockett?” 

Tubbs barely concealed a wince. It sounded… flirtatious. It was late, but he wasn’t nearly sleep-deprived enough to be that obvious. Was he?

But Sonny just laughed that spectacular braying laugh of his, the one that wasn't limned with meanness that he used when he was playing Burnett.

"Well, the way I figure, I gotta start somewhere to get the station's act together, and you stand a better chance of chilling out than the lieutenant—I can't afford to lose my job. Me and Elvis'd be out on the street."

As if Sonny wasn't the most on-edge guy he knew, besides Castillo, of course. But the mental image of the detective hopping a train with his alligator, all pastel linen and five o'clock shadow, made Rico smile. 

"Plus I'd lose the Daytona," the other man continued, running a fond hand across the dashboard. "So, what do you say—want a smoke?"

He shrugged after a brief moment of consideration. "Sure, man, I'm bored."

"Alright," Crockett said gleefully, like they were really about to become co-conspirators in something. He extracted two cigarettes from his pack with a flourish, tapping them against the back of his hand before passing one to Rico alongside his lighter. His partner eyed the items dubiously before placing the cigarette between his lips with forced casualness. Any hope he had of looking remotely cool (which, in this case, was already close to zero) was obliterated by the breeze, which snuffed the lighter's flame out almost instantly.

Crockett laughed through his nose but graciously refrained from commenting. He shook his head with amusement and gestured at Tubbs.

“Come here.” 

Sonny held his own Lucky Strike to his mouth and leaned across the center console, bringing the ends of their respective cigarettes close, shielding them from the wind with one hand and flicking his lighter with the other, looking askance. Rico stole a glance at the other man from under his eyelashes. The small flame dashed its light across the blonde’s unfairly good-looking face, and Tubbs was finding it hard to think. He might not smoke, but guys didn’t do that, right? Straight guys. Tubbs didn’t know—he went out with women. Mostly. And it was dark, but he could've sworn the other man had been  _ blushing _ . 

He caught his bearings and inhaled, hoping his thoughts weren't playing out too clearly on his face. 

But almost immediately, Rico made a different expression, a sort of surprised grimace, and recoiled, extracting the cigarette from his mouth abruptly, and Crockett barked out another laugh, sharp but not unkind. Sympathetic. Tubbs picked the flecks of tobacco off his tongue, frowning.

"I think your cigarettes are broken."

"They're working just fine for me," the blonde grinned, pointedly exhaling smoke from his nose.

Tubbs looked at the sky, appealing to a higher power. Sonny was insufferable.

“Alright, Crockett, clue me in—how the hell are you supposed to smoke these things?”

“You gotta roll it, kind of… press down so the tobacco doesn’t fall out, and—c’mon, pal, you’ve seen me do this a thousand times.”

“I always thought you did all that stuff, you know, for show.” 

“I’ve never done anything for show in my life,” Sonny said gravely. Rico nodded, his mouth a fixed line and definitely not fighting against a smile. They maintained their seriousness for a moment before collapsing into laughter. 

"I don't know, man," said Rico, after, turning the cigarette over in his fingers, "I don't think I'm destined to be a smoker."

"That kinda talk's for quitters, Rico," his partner said wryly, going quiet, contemplating a plan of attack. When he next spoke, he was wearing an expression that was hard to make out in the dark, but that Tubbs thought made him look painfully young. Like he was anticipating being scolded.

“Alright, we could always… just so you can—I could…” Sonny paused, shook his head a little, and smiled sheepishly, before continuing, resolute. “I wanna try something."

“Yeah?” Rico said softly. It was all he could manage. The other man's nervousness was... not what he thought it was. Right?

Sonny visibly paused, thinking so loud it hurt, and at the end of whatever calculation he was making, he sighed and gave his partner a crooked smile. 

"Stop me if I read this wrong, okay?"

Quickly, as if racing against his own capacity for overthinking, Crockett plucked his partner's failed cigarette from his hand and set it aside. He took a deep drag of his own and reached across the console, curled one hand around the back of Rico’s neck as he held his breath, held the smoke in his chest. Rico’s eyes widened in surprised understanding, and he nodded, parting his lips slightly. 

And then their mouths were pressed together, Sonny exhaling the smoke into the other detective's lungs, and Rico briefly, absurdly panicked as to how he was going to pass this off as a platonic gesture, not make too big a deal out of it to himself. 

Which was not only ridiculous, but a total lost cause. Sonny smelled like smoke, the ocean, and something like citrus. Tasted like the lukewarm coffee they'd been drinking all night, but not unpleasantly. He was warm, his lips were soft, and the hand at the back of Rico's neck, tentative as it was, was doing things to his heart and... the rest of his body. The tendrils of nicotine coiled through his blood, or he thought they did, but he couldn't quite figure out what sensation was the result of the smoke and what was from the almost-kiss. Whatever it was, it settled in his chest and burned bright as a signal flare. The other man lingered for longer than was strictly necessary before pulling away, avoiding eye contact with Rico, clearing his throat.

"You probably got the picture," he muttered, and busied himself gathering up and adjusting the binoculars. Like he'd somehow determined that his partner  _ wasn't interested _ . 

Rico pushed the binoculars aside, and the blonde detective looked stricken.

"I'm not sure I did. There was all that smoke in the way," he said slyly, and kissed him properly. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title is just cute, throwaway nonsense & i will probably change it because i'm pretentious. 
> 
> i tried to smoke a Lucky Strike once and I don't understand unfiltered cigarettes at all!! But I'm an office-parties-only smoker and a neophyte, and when you're blitzed at a Christmas party and attempting to smoke some weird old-timey cigarette that some old dude gave you, it's always daunting. 
> 
> I'm sure Tubbs will smoke a cigarette or cigar at some point (I'm in the middle of season 2 right now), or maybe already has & I forgot, but we will pretend that it either doesn't happen or that this story takes place before that. 
> 
> Also, does Tubbs not drink? He's always ordering water or virgin cocktails. 
> 
> This show is going to kill me. The flirtation is too much. The inability to date anyone because of work - WAKE UP, YOU GUYS, FIGURE THIS OUT, you spend all day together, there is a solution here. 
> 
> One thing I really don't understand is that all people seem to remember about Miami Vice, the general cultural takeaway, seems to be... the cars! the clothes! the music! the chicks!! I started watching it as a joke but was almost instantly captivated. It's far more subversive and critical of surprising things than I'd expected from some goofy cop show. What show did these people watch, because it sure as hell isn't the one I'm watching. Did they just see the intro & outro on a loop? But whatever, lol, look at the pastel suits, I guess.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading. I'm getting saccharine in my fic-writing.


End file.
